Deutsche Physik - Effect On The German Nuclear Program

Effect On The German Nuclear Program

It is occasionally put forth that there is a great irony in the Nazis' labeling modern physics as "Jewish science", since it was exactly modern physics—and the work of many European exiles—which was used to create the atomic bomb. Even if the German government had not embraced Lenard and Stark's ideas, the German antisemitic agenda was enough by itself to destroy the Jewish scientific community in Germany. Furthermore, the German nuclear energy project was never pursued with anywhere near the vigor of the Manhattan Project in the United States, and for that reason would likely not have succeeded in any case. The movement did not actually go as far as preventing the nuclear energy scientists from using quantum mechanics and relativity, but the education of young scientists and engineers suffered, not only from the loss of the Jewish scientists but also from political appointments and other interference. In 1938, Himmler wrote to Heisenberg that he could discuss modern physics but not mention Jewish scientists such as Bohr and Einstein in connection with it. The loss of so much science affected the war little in atomic energy because they lacked the necessary industrial resources to go beyond at most a few small power reactors. It greatly affected their aerodynamics research, but that was so far ahead before the Nazis took over that the Allies did not catch up until after the war. Presumably, it had more decisive effects on other areas of war related research to which physicists normally contribute, such as radar, communications and chemistry.

Read more about this topic:  Deutsche Physik

Famous quotes containing the words effect on the, effect on, effect, german, nuclear and/or program:

    Airplanes are invariably scheduled to depart at such times as 7:54, 9:21 or 11:37. This extreme specificity has the effect on the novice of instilling in him the twin beliefs that he will be arriving at 10:08, 1:43 or 4:22, and that he should get to the airport on time. These beliefs are not only erroneous but actually unhealthy.
    Fran Lebowitz (b. 1950)

    We are such docile creatures, normally, that it takes a virus to jolt us out of life’s routine. A couple of days in a fever bed are, in a sense, health-giving; the change in body temperature, the change in pulse rate, and the change of scene have a restorative effect on the system equal to the hell they raise.
    —E.B. (Elwyn Brooks)

    As for charity, it is a matter in which the immediate effect on the persons directly concerned, and the ultimate consequence to the general good, are apt to be at complete war with one another.
    John Stuart Mill (1806–1873)

    Everything ponderous, viscous, and solemnly clumsy, all long- winded and boring types of style are developed in profuse variety among Germans—forgive me the fact that even Goethe’s prose, in its mixture of stiffness and elegance, is no exception, being a reflection of the “good old time” to which it belongs, and a reflection of German taste at a time when there still was a “German taste”Ma rococo taste in moribus et artibus.
    Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)

    The reduction of nuclear arsenals and the removal of the threat of worldwide nuclear destruction is a measure, in my judgment, of the power and strength of a great nation.
    Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)

    The Apache have a legend that the coyote brought them fire and that the bear in his hibernations communes with the spirits of the “overworld” and later imparts the wisdom gained thereby to the medicine men.
    —Administration in the State of Arizona, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)